In a process of manufacturing a semiconductor substrate (hereinafter, referred to simply as a “substrate”), conventionally, various processings are performed on a substrate by using a substrate processing apparatus. By supplying a processing liquid onto a substrate having a surface on which a resist pattern is formed, for example, a processing such as etching or the like is performed on the surface of the substrate. Further, after the etching is finished, a process of removing the resist from the substrate and a process of cleaning the substrate are also performed.
In an apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-246156 (Document 1), after rinsing a developer or the like on a wafer by using a rinse liquid, the wafer is dried. Specifically, a wafer is loaded into a rinse processing part and absorbed by a wafer absorption part, and after an opening of the rinse processing part is closed by a shutter, an internal space of the rinse processing part is exhausted. Then, in the internal space which has been brought into a reduced pressure atmosphere, rinse processing is performed by rotating the wafer together with the wafer absorption part at low speed and supplying the rinse liquid thereto, and after that, the wafer is dried by rotating the wafer at high speed.
In such an apparatus as disclosed in Document 1, a driving part such as a servo motor or the like for rotating the wafer absorption part is provided outside the rinse processing part and mechanically connected to the wafer absorption part with a rotation axis penetrating an outer wall of the rinse processing part. For this reason, it is necessary to provide a seal at a portion where the rotation axis penetrates from the outside of the rinse processing part into the internal space to prevent outflow of the processing liquid and entry of particles. Further, in the case where the internal space of the rinse processing part is brought into a reduced pressure atmosphere, like in the case of Document 1, it is also necessary to prevent inflow and outflow of the atmosphere by the seal. Since such a seal has a very complicated structure, there is a possibility that the apparatus may be complicated or upsized, and moreover, it is not easy to completely seal the internal space even by using the seal.